The Tribe: a quest for ideas at the work camp

For the 9,000 people working at TUI Destination Experiences, the mission is to help 14 million guests in 49 countries around the world enjoy their personal holiday experience. In terms of logistics, that is a mammoth exercise. Tackling it means questioning routines and testing new methods. The best chance of success is to create a working atmosphere as exceptional as the ideas you want to create. So 20 employees from different countries, segments and functions got together on Majorca in April, moved into a house away from the tourist bustle for two months and launched The Tribe: during the day they explored innovative solutions and in the evening they cooked together – and it was here that a lot of ideas were born. Strictly unwanted were: emails, video conferences, silo mentalities and coordination loops.

Which chains own those sought-after little hotels on the Prater in Vienna? Which ports have ferries serving the island of Corsica? Staff at TUI Austria find answers to these questions by playing with the KnowledgeFox app. It runs on a smart phone or tablet and contains over 900 questions about 14 aspects of tourism. The brainteasing can be done at home or at work, because MicroLearning is not just about having fun with a quiz, but about picking up vital knowledge. Users who complete a level are sent a certificate. And once a year everything is put to the test in a TUI MicroMatch, when participants play against their colleagues for four weeks. The winners are rewarded not only with fame and glory, but also with an attractive prize.

TUI Master Class: lifelong learning

Nora Aspengren works for TUI Nordic in Oslo as a communications manager, but last summer she tried something completely different. Along with about 20 colleagues she went to Stockholm for the master class “Introduction to Programming”. “For me it’s an entirely new world,” she says. At TUI Nordic every employee has over 40 hours of worktime a year to attend professional development of their own free choice. The idea behind the Master Class project is that any employee can also train other people on one of these courses. “Our specialists have so much knowledge, and we want to make that avail­able to everyone,” says Esben Thykier, Head of Talent, Performance & Learning at TUI Nordic.

Open conference rooms with bright wooden panels, a sofa corner looking out over a patio, a meeting-point with a kitchenette for
spontaneous meet-ups: it has a unique and inspiring air, this pilot space at TUI headquarters in Hanover. The people in TUI Group
Finance who will eventually work here were involved in the redesign and encouraged to submit ideas. They talked together with ex-
perts about requirements for the new world of work – and how to
implement these practically in the pilot project.